BOEHNER PLANS TO SUE OBAMA: 'We Didn't Elect A Monarch Or King'

House Speaker John Boehner confirmed Wednesday he plans to file a
lawsuit against President Barack Obama in the coming
days, in a bold attempt to challenge the
administration's heavy use of executive actions to further its
agenda.

Boehner sent a memo to the House Republican conference on
Wednesday informing of his plans to file legislation in July that
would allow the House of Representatives to file suit to compel
Obama to "faithfully execute the laws of our country."

"Everywhere I go in America outside of Washington, D.C., I’m
asked: when will the House stand up on behalf of the people to
stop the encroachment of executive power under President Obama?
We elected a president, Americans note; we didn’t elect a monarch
or king," Boehner wrote in the memo.

"The fact that they are considering a taxpayer funded
lawsuit against the President of the United States for doing his
job, I think, is the kind of step that most Americans wouldn't
support," Earnest said.

Boehner did not announce which executive actions he would target
as part of the lawsuit. Obama, however, has given House Republicans
plenty of potential material. He has made 2014 a self-proclaimed
"year of action," issuing executive orders on everything from the
minimum wage to federal pay discrimination. Perhaps the most
controversial administrative-only move this year came in the form
of newly announced regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency on
carbon emissions.

Republicans have also roundly criticized Obama for taking
administrative action to delay parts of the Affordable Care
Act, most notably the so-called employer mandate.
In 2012, he also took action to stem the tide of deportations of
undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, a
policy for which he has taken heat in light of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Boehner hinted in the letter he plans to summon
the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to carry out the
legal action. The BLAG is controlled by the top three Republicans
— the Speaker, Majority Leader, and Majority Whip — along with
the Democratic House Minority Leader and Minority Whip. The last
time the panel was convened came in 2011, when the Obama
administration said it would no longer defend the federal Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court.

"I believe the House must act as an institution to defend the
constitutional principles at stake and to protect our system of
government and our economy from continued executive abuse,"
Boehner wrote in the memo to colleagues. "The president has an
obligation to faithfully execute the laws of our country. When
this legislation is introduced in the coming weeks, I ask that
you review it and join me in supporting it when it goes before
the House."